CHEF TIME

Hello ladies and gents this is the viking telling you that today we are talking about

GORDON RAMSEY

Gordon James Ramsay OBE (born 8 November 1966) is a British chef, restaurateur, writer, television personality and food critic. He was born in Johnstone, Scotland, and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. His restaurants have been awarded 16 Michelin stars in total and currently hold a total of seven. His signature restaurant, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea, London, has held three Michelin stars since 2001. Appearing on the British television miniseries Boiling Point in 1998, by 2004 Ramsay had become one of the best-known and most influential chefs in the UK.

As a reality television personality, Ramsay is known for his fiery temper, strict demeanour, and frequent use of expletives. He often makes blunt and controversial comments, including insults and wisecracks about contestants' cooking and restaurant facilities. He combines activities in the television, film, hospitality, and food industries and has promoted and hired various chefs who have apprenticed under his wing. 

Ramsay is known for presenting TV programmes about competitive cookery and food, such as the British series Hell's Kitchen, The F Word, and Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, the American series MasterChef, MasterChef Junior, and Hotel Hell, and the American versions of Hell's Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares. In 2018, Forbes listed his earnings at $62 million for the previous 12 months, and ranked him the 33rd-highest-earning celebrity in the world.

Early cooking career

By this time, Ramsay's interest in cooking had already begun, and rather than be known as the football player with the gammy knee, at age 19, Ramsay paid more serious attention to his culinary education. Ramsay enrolled at North Oxfordshire Technical College, sponsored by the Rotarians, to study hotel management. He describes his decision to enter catering college as "an accident, a complete accident."

In the mid-1980s, he worked as a commis chef at the Wroxton House Hotel then ran the kitchen and 60-seat dining room at the Wickham Arms, until his sexual relationship with the owner's wife made the situation difficult. Ramsay then moved to London, where he worked in a series of restaurants until being inspired to work for the temperamental Marco Pierre White at Harveys.

After working at Harveys for two years and ten months, Ramsay, tired of "the rages and the bullying and violence", decided that the way to further advance his career was to study French cuisine. White discouraged Ramsay from taking a job in Paris, instead encouraging him to work for Albert Roux at Le Gavroche in Mayfair, where he met Jean-Claude Breton, now his maître d'hôtel at Royal Hospital Road. 

After working at Le Gavroche for a year, Albert Roux invited Ramsay to work with him at Hotel Diva, a ski resort in the French Alps, as his number two. From there, a 23-year-old Ramsay moved to Paris to work with Guy Savoy and Joël Robuchon, both Michelin-starred chefs. 

In Master Chef series 3 episode 18, Gordon Ramsay stated that Guy Savoy was his mentor. He continued his training in France for three years, before giving in to the physical and mental stress of the kitchens and taking a year to work as a personal chef on the private yacht Idlewild, based in Bermuda. The role on the boat saw him travel to Sicily and Sardinia, Italy, and learn about Italian cuisine.

Head chef

Upon his return to London in 1993, Ramsay was offered the position of head chef, under chef-patron Pierre Koffmann, at the three-Michelin-starred La Tante Claire in Chelsea. Shortly thereafter, Marco Pierre White reentered his life, offering to set him up with a head chef position and 10% share in the Rossmore, owned by White's business partners. The restaurant was renamed Aubergine and went on to win its first Michelin star fourteen months later.

 In 1997, Aubergine won its second Michelin star. Despite the restaurant's success, a dispute with Ramsay's business owners, who wanted to turn Aubergine into a chain, and Ramsay's dream of running his own restaurant led to his leaving the partnership in July 1998. He has described the decision to set out on his own as "the most important day of my entire cooking career; the most important decision of my life".

In 1998, Ramsay opened his own restaurant in Chelsea, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, with the help of his father-in-law, Chris Hutcheson, and his former colleagues at Aubergine. The restaurant gained its third Michelin star in 2001, making Ramsay the first Scot to achieve that feat. In 2011, The Good Food Guide listed Restaurant Gordon Ramsay as the second best in the UK, only bettered by The Fat Duck in Bray, Berkshire.

After establishing his first restaurant, Ramsay's empire expanded rapidly. He next opened Petrus, then Amaryllis in Glasgow (which he was later forced to close), and later Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's. He hired his friend and maître d'hôtel Jean-Philippe Susilovic, who works at Petrus and also appears on Ramsay's US TV show Hell's Kitchen. Restaurants at the Dubai Creek and Connaught hotels followed, the latter branded with his protegee Angela Hartnett's name. 

Ramsay has opened restaurants outside the UK, beginning with Verre in Dubai. Two restaurants, Gordon Ramsay at Conrad Tokyo and Cerise by Gordon Ramsay, both opened in Tokyo in 2005. In November 2006, Gordon Ramsay at the London opened in New York City, winning top newcomer in the city's coveted Zagat guide, despite mixed reviews from professional critics.

In 2007, Ramsay opened his first restaurant in Ireland, Gordon Ramsay at Powerscourt, at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Powerscourt, County Wicklow. This restaurant closed in 2013. In May 2008, he opened his first restaurant in the Western US, in The London West Hollywood Hotel (formerly the Bel-Age Hotel) on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. The contract expired in 2015, closing the restaurant.

On 9 August 2011, Ramsay opened his first Canadian restaurant, Laurier Gordon Ramsay (at the former Rotisserie Laurier BBQ) in Montreal. In February 2012, Danny Lavy, the owner of the restaurant, announced the restaurant was disassociating itself from Ramsay, citing a lack of involvement and understanding on Ramsay's part. The restaurant closed in 2013.

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